1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to every product such as paper money, a coin, valuable instrument, certificates, a tag, a label, a card, packing containers, books, bearer bonds, vehicles, food items, garments, personal items, healthcare items, livingwares, medicals, a recording medium, or an electronic device, each of which can be distributed and installed with an integrated circuit having a memory or a microprocessor (central processing unit).
2. Related Art
In recent years, calls for enhancement of safety of products and improvement of a management system among an industrial world such as food industry, manufacture industry, and financial industry are heightened. Accordingly, an amount of information regarding the product becomes increased. Main product information at present is information on country of manufacture, a manufacturer, a product number, and the like provided from numbers of ten several digits of a barcode. In the case of using a barcode, reading requires much time since reading of the barcode is performed manually one by one. Consequently, automatic recognition technique by a noncontact IC tag utilizing an electromagnetic wave referred to as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) has attracted attention instead of using a barcode system.
To secure the safety of animals and plants (for example, place of origin, the absence or presence of infectious disease, or the like), a system for obtaining and controlling information on the animals and plants has been diffused by reading information from an IC chip directly embedded in the body of the animals and plants with a reader device (reader) of outside the body.
In recent years, the number of cards carried by one person has been increased. Especially, a noncontact IC card for communicating with use of an electromagnetic field has been diffused in an electronic ticket form or an electronic money form.
To prevent reproduction or wrongful use of paper money, coins, valuable instruments, tickets, and the like due to counterfeit or theft of them, technique of embedding an IC chip in each of them has been diffused. (See Non Patent Document 1)
A communication principle of the conventional noncontact IC chip is explained with reference to FIG. 24. A product including a noncontact IC chip is held against an external device such as a reader/writer, and the noncontact IC chip receives an electromagnetic wave from the reader/writer, then, an electromotive force is generated by a resonance action, and then, the noncontact IC chip in an RFID tag starts operating. After the information in the chip is converted into signals, an antenna at the side of the noncontact IC chip transmits signals and an antenna of the reader/writer receives the sent signals. Then, the signals are sent to a data processing device such as a computer via a controller, and then, data processing such as identification is performed.
[Non Patent Document 1]
Nikkei Electronics, Nikkei Business Publications, pp. 67-76, Nov. 18, 2002.
Although a product having such the IC chip has been diffused, information on the product may be capable of being perceived, abstracted, falsified, or the like by a third person with his external device during the distribution of the product or after the purchase of the product. Further, it becomes increasingly serious when the product is thieved. There is possibility that information on the product is readily flowed and privacy is seriously infringed. In addition, there is also possibility that a counterfeit good, an imitation good, or wrongful use of products is increased due to the abstraction, the falsification, or the like of the flowed information.
Especially in the case that IC chips are mounted on products (regardless of movable property or immovable property) that enter almost distribution processes; human body; animals or plants; and the like in future, the foregoing problems become increasingly serious. Therefore, information installed to those IC chips is required to be protected.